A health kidney works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to remove toxins and fluid from the body. Many children with permanent kidney failure undergo dialysis, a life saving procedure that takes the place of a kidney. Currently, many children with permanent kidney failure only receive dialysis treatments 3 days a week in the hospital dialysis clinic. Children on dialysis have a markedly reduced life expectancy, with a life span 40-50 years shorter than their healthy counterparts. Survival for these children has not improved over the last 20 years. These data indicate that the current dialysis treatment strategy is unacceptable.

This research project will study if more frequent dialysis, performed 5 days per week, will improve the health of children with permanent kidney failure compared to the current treatment strategy. Children will be treated with both traditional and more frequent dialysis schedules to measure improvements in their health and well being.

Patients have to be on chronic HD for at least 2 months before eligibility

Exclusion Criteria:

Patients with a scheduled (with a specific transplant date) kidney transplant in the next 6 months

Patients scheduled to be switched to peritoneal dialysis in the next 6 months

Patients currently receiving >3 days per week of hemodialysis

Patients currently receiving >12 hours per week of hemodialysis

Anyone <3 years of age would be excluded from the study, so our minimum anticipated patient weight would be about 11 kg

Patients >21 years of age at enrollment

Patients receiving concomitant peritoneal dialysis

Patients with <2 months on chronic HD

Patients with a temporary or femoral dialysis catheter

Patients who are not hypertensive (both not on blood pressure medication and with a SBP <95th percentile for age, sex, and height)

Patients enrolled in an investigational drug trial involving blood pressure medication or any other clinical trial potentially affecting the primary outcome of the study

Patients listed for a deceased donor transplant will not be excluded.

Contacts and Locations

Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study.
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the Contacts provided below.
For general information, see Learn About Clinical Studies.

Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01352455